Got a visit today from a "new" squirrel - an Eastern Gray (also introduced) for the first time. Not Pentax, but I needed the reach of the 500 AF mirror - she (?) was very skittish and I couldn't get close - it took the whole day to get these, as it took that long for her to get up enough nerve to get up on the bench and stay there long enough to get photographed in the fading evening light.

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If life brings you lemons, you can make lemonade.

How do these non-native squirrels get introduced? Especially since squirrels are sort-of pests and many would love to run them off altogether.

She looks different than the grey tree squirrels that are common around here. Ours are bigger/fatter, tails are bushier and they don't have brown on them, though their darker fur is grey like this. I've always thought they were native to the area, but your comment makes me wonder.

Harriet, your squirrels are Western Grays, a different species, that is indigenous to the mountains, but does not venture into "civilization." Squirrels were introduced by Easterners who moved west and wanted them for familiarity or perhaps for hunting. There are no native squirrels in the LA basin. Eastern Grays are known to be in the Bay Area, but are not officially recorded for Southern California. I have seen them for years in Huntington Central Park, but nobody ("official") believed me. Now I have the proof!

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If life brings you lemons, you can make lemonade.

Thanks for the information, I wondered about the squirrel population and why ours up here were so different than those I see around work. No one around here feeds the squirrels, though they help themselves to bird seed (if there are fewer squirrels hanging around the houses there will be less reason for coyotes to hang around). They are skittish and hard to photograph.